Steaming

Only the steam train was steaming thankfully in Weybourne Station, I've missed photographing the steam trains since March, this is as close as I've been. G and I went for a walk in lovely sun this morning from Sheringham Park to the station by path, then back to the car park through the woods. I've included an Extra of the windmill and sea looking lovely in the sun. I received my Sainsbury's xmas shop this afternoon, just one non key item undelivered and one non key substitution I didn't want, so a much better result on fresh fruit and salad than I was expecting. All local presents and cards delivered now, just one friend's present to deliver. 

Day 282 / Day 3 of the 4 Tiers (for my record only)
UK deaths up 691 to 68,307 (revised basis), with 36,804 new cases, 18,943 patients in hospital and 1,364 on ventilation. New cases today were another new record, and 46% higher than when we went into Lockdown 2. Since the pandemic started, excess deaths in the UK as at the week of 11th Dec stand at 81,361 and deaths with Covid on the certificate are at 79,351. Globally cases to date pass 78m, and deaths in France have passed 60,000. Ireland is closing restaurants and gastro pubs from 3pm xmas eve, with a full ban on households mixing indoors and outside from 1st Jan - the PM there thinks the new variant is probably already in circulation. The virus has reached the Antarctica, the last continent to be affected. Work is on-going to see if the new variant is causing children to be more affected as suspected, which would account for the huge spike in cases. This afternoon Kent County Council said that 2,800 lorries were being held up due to the travel ban to France, 2,180 at an airfield and 632 in Operation Stack on the M20. Lorries are also reported parked up in other counties. Tesco has put buying caps on eggs, rice, soap and (yes you guessed it) toilet rolls as a result. The ban is looking like it might have been lifted for French nationals, EU citizens and those with residency in France, but only if arrivals have tested negative with a PCR test in the last 3 days or another antigen test that detects the new variant (PCR tests currently take at least a day to get results back). Planes, boats and Eurostar trains can also resume service tomorrow morning. The EU has told countries to lift restrictions to allow essential journeys and minimise trade disruption and the EU commissioner for justice said that 'blanket travel bans should not prevent thousands of EU and UK citizens from returning to their homes' in the lead up to xmas, As usual when push comes to shove individual countries are ignoring this EU statement and doing their own thing, with Germany extending their travel ban until 6th Jan.  US President-elect Biden had his first jab of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine.